A standard tape applicator or holder has a housing provided with a roll supply of tape, with a feed system for paying out the tape, and with a cutter for cutting off the payed out piece of tape. Such devices are described in German patent documents DE-Al-3,109,735, DE-Al-2,801,540, French FR-A-2,061,281, European EP-A-92,187 and EP-A-207,868, and in U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,442,058, 3,204,949, 3,466,963.
The known devices do indeed make it fairly easy to apply the tape directly to a substrate. To this end a small projecting end of the tape is pressed by the apparatus down against the substrate and the apparatus is pulled along the substrate, thereby simultaneously paying out and applying the tape to the substrate. At the end the device is actuated to cut off the applied piece, leaving a small tip of the tape exposed on the apparatus for the next use.
If on the contrary the user merely needs a piece of tape to apply manually to something, it is fairly difficult and frequently impossible to feed out and pull off such a piece. Doing so often requires the user to work immediately adjacent the cutting arrangement with his or her fingers, with the possibility of injury inherent in doing so.